Wireless communication systems have become increasingly popular for many applications and types of information, including voice and data communications. Such communication systems are designed to communicate information in a transparent manner, with each end user (e.g., communication equipment, such as terminals or base stations) generally being responsible for ensuring that the data ultimately delivered is in a desired form. An advantage of wireless communication is the mobility of communications equipment.
Many wireless communications systems employ a layered architecture for digital communication systems, such as based on the International Organization for Standardization reference model for Open Systems Interconnection (referred to as the “OSI Reference Model”). The OSI Reference Model provides a standard to facilitate connecting open systems; namely, systems that are open for communication with other systems. The OSI model has seven layers, each of which performs a well-defined function. The layers include a physical layer, a data link layer, a network layer, a transport layer, a session layer, a presentation layer and an application layer.
Due to the mobility of communications equipment and satellite stations, in operation, it is often necessary to pass signaling from one base station or platform to a next base station, which event is referred to as a handover. Typically, handover occurs as part of bi-directional communication between the network and the terminal equipment that is being handed over to a new platform or frequency. Such bi-directional communication is usually implemented via high-level communications in the OSI communications model, such as at the network layer or other higher layer. The network layer handover usually requires several messages to be exchanged in sequence between the network and the terminal being handed over. This message exchange can cause considerable delay in achieving the handover. Additionally, because the data in the message exchange is higher level data (e.g., network layer data), the messages are processed by the network and terminals in order to implement the handover event. Accordingly, undesirable processing delays also can accompany such handover, which can further tie up system resources. The delays become even more significant when there are increased propagation delays due to such signaling between the terminals being handed over and the network.
While a network layer handover is generally manageable for handover events for small numbers of terminal, the messaging and processing delays associated with network level handover tend to become even more pronounced for mass handover events. A mass handover event corresponds to a situation when a relatively large number of terminals are being handed over concurrently. A mass handover event can occur, for example, when a communications platform being used by a plurality of terminals is being replaced by another platform.